


Sunlit Melody

by npeg



Series: 2 + 2 Equals [4]
Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Classical Music, M/M, Piano
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 08:27:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/npeg/pseuds/npeg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve had forgotten that Tony could play the piano.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunlit Melody

**Author's Note:**

> I stumbled across this little piece as I was searching my files for a different WIP and realised I'd never published it! tut tut

There, again, somewhere down the winding corridors of the mansion, came the faint echo of piano keys, a slow melody caught and distorted by wooden panels, by metal and glass, carpet and corners.  
The sound skated across the surface of floors and walls, of ceilings, glided and shivered and pulsed through the hallways.

Steve tilted his head.

The notes were soft, the harmony sad, and the music lilted and turned in swaying bars, almost heavy with emotion, in the same way thick cloth felt when held in the palm of a hand, like folds of crushed velvet slipping between deft fingers.

He’d forgotten that Tony could play the piano.

His feet carried him to the soft quiet dark of the music room before he thought to stop himself from intruding. Interrupting a man lost in music was nothing if not cruel, and as Steve’s fingers curled at the frame of the doorway, he stopped just outside, and hung back a breath.

With a pool of light about his shoulders, casting ripples along his hands as the boughs of trees moved in the wind outside, Tony’s fingers all but caressed the ivory keys, gentle as a lover’s, and the piano sang beneath them. His eyes were closed, and his body moved but slightly, swaying, as he drifted between this plane and the next, the melody carrying him further with each progressing chord. His eyebrows knitted and parted again, his face a picture in itself as the piece moved through him, from muscle and bone to wood and metal, from body to birth through the elegant black form of the grand piano at which he sat, hands dancing.

Steve’s breath was swallowed in his ears, eclipsed by the music, and as the notes swept upwards, the tone of the piece slipping free of the melancholy weight it had known, it evolved, became transcendent, and Tony moved with it. His fingers increased in speed, the complexity of the notes weaving ever more intricately between them, about them, and a smile sang his eyes, creases of laughter appearing at the corners of his mouth, upturned.  
In the pool of light from the dying sun, Tony was resplendent, his form awash with gold. Rays caught the hinges of the instrument, glinting up into Steve’s eyes, and he blinked at the light seeking to blind him. He threw a hand up to shield his vision, and as he did, Tony’s own hands stilled against the keys, the harmony they were creating cruelly and abruptly halted.

The apology was already formed upon Steve’s lips but Tony didn’t let him give it voice. He turned his head, just slightly, and with eyes half-covered by lids heavy with the weight and power contained in the music he was bound in, Tony smiled.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he murmured, and his eyes slid closed as the warm sun kissed his cheeks through the window glass.

Steve nodded, his hand lowering in the same moment.  
“Where did you learn to play like that?” he asked quietly.  
“My mother,” said Tony, smiling. “She taught me. Always wanted me to do something more… delicate with my hands,” he chuckled, “More refined.”  
“Why haven’t I ever heard you play before?” Steve asked, taking small steps into the room. Tony simply shrugged.  
“Guess I just haven’t had the urge to play in… well, years, actually.” Tony smiled down at the piano then, fingers gently brushing the keys, and added, “I didn’t even realise I’d missed it until I started playing…”

“You’re good,” said Steve, “Very good.”  
Tony smiled widely up at him at the comment.  
“Used to be better,” he shrugged, cracking his knuckles, “I’m more than a little out of practice.”  
Steve nodded, leaning against the piano now.  
“When was the last time you played?”  
“Must be, what, 10 years?” Tony answered after a moment’s thought.  
And Steve laughed at that.  
“Just a little then,” he said, teasing.  
“Hey, give a guy a break, Rogers,” Tony smiled back. “I haven’t exactly been sat on my thumbs around here, y’know. It’s pretty busy being me.”  
Steve shook his head and rested a hand on the smooth sleek edge of the piano. “You can never be too busy for something like this,” he murmured, still smiling to himself, thumb tracing the lip of the lid, “There’s always time for beautiful music.”  
“Didn’t know you were such a sucker for classical piano,” nudged Tony, now his turn to tease.  
The captain simply shrugged. “Must be the way you play it,” he answered softly after a moment, a different sort of light in his eyes.

His fingers curled at the shelf edge, reaching over, and Tony brushed his knuckles across the back of Steve’s fingers then, smiling. His eyes came up slowly, slipping along the captain’s arm, across his shoulder and up his neck to alight on his face, meeting the piercing blue eyes that looked down at him.  
“Are you going to finish the piece?” Steve asked, his voice soft.  
And Tony smiled, inclining his head in a slight nod. “For you, sweetheart – of course.”  
His fingers dipped back to the keys as he added, “How could I refuse a beauty like you a damn thing?”

Steve leaned down and kissed him with a smile on his lips, murmuring against the soft curve of his mouth,  
“You never could.”


End file.
